The club superstore franchise Costco is expanding its Philadelphia presence with a new store at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets in Sanatoga next week. The grand opening is slated for Aug. 17 and the store will be open from 8 a.m. - 8:30 p.m.
There will be about 200 employees working at the new store; 100 were brought in from other area Costco's, including Montgomeryville and King of Prussia, and the other 100 are new hires, according to general manager Scott Riekers, who has been with the company for 25 years.
Riekers began his journey with Costco in Baltimore and soon became the general manager of the Lancaster, Pa. store. He then went on to be the GM at the Gaithersburg, Md. location and has held the same position at the King of Prussia location for the past eight years. The Sanatoga location is the first store he will be opening brand new.
"I’m very excited," Riekers said. "I am thrilled to death with the way it looks. I think the location right off 422 is fantastic. This will be the first Costco in the Philadelphia are that has a gas station. It has great sight lines from the road. We are already accepting signups in the parking lot now. Great response from the community so far."
There are no special plans for the grand opening, aside from bringing in some limited edition items that will only be available for a short time, such as a $200,000 diamond ring. Despite the risk of carrying such a highly priced item in an area with such high theft attempts, Riekers said he is confident in his loss prevention department.
This Costco, like all of the company's stores, was strategically picked by a metrics system of demographics and comparisons to other stores in the area. King of Prussia was opened in 1997, meaning it took 14 years to expand in the immediate area. The new facility is a standard size warehouse at 148,000 square feet and set to handle "tremendous volume."
However, most impressive is the company's drive to make locations work.
"I’ll tell you that I can’t remember the last time we closed a Costco building," Riekers said. "It’s been at least 20 years. We don’t open these buildings to not be successful. We make them work. We’ve opened several hundred buildings in the last 20 years and we haven’t closed any."
Riekers said the store is ready to go, pending local inspections and permits passing. Again, potential members can sign up in the parking lot of the new location, or online.
"We’re looking forward to creating a family environment here for these employees and to hit the ground running as we open up next week," said Riekers.
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